Disobliging Ways
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: SPOILERS FOR 3.03 Curiousity has brought many a downfall... Rated T for safety, contains one bad word.


**Disclaimer:** Kripke owns the joint, I'm just rearranging the furniture.  
**Warnings:** SPOILERS FOR 3.03. Totally AU Crack  
**Summary:** Curiosity has brought many a downfall... Further summary withheld due to spoiler.  
**A/N:** So, I was pondering something after 3.03... and this is the cracky AU result. 

-  
**Disobliging Ways**  
by CaffieneKitty  
-

Bela swore she'd only turned her back for a second and the damned foot had disappeared.

She did a quick room-to-room search, just in case someone had gotten in without her noticing. Nothing out of place. Well, except an inordinate number of pigeons on the fire escape. She'd have to talk to the fellow upstairs with the foul yappy pekingese dog about spilling its food down onto her fire escape again.

While checking the floor around the counter for the third time, sweeping underneath with the tongs, there was a knock at her door. Bela froze and stared suspiciously at it. She hadn't let anyone into the building, and she wasn't expecting a visit from anyone... Tucking her Walther behind her back she sidled up to the door.

"Who is it?"

"Loehmann's Deli, I've got your delivery."

Standard dodge. Winchester probably. "I'm sorry, I didn't order anything. Go away."

"Maybe I've got the wrong apartment." He rattled off her address.

All very well to give a person's address when you're looking at their door. "That's where you are, but I did not order anything. I'm afraid you'll have to take it back."

"Uh, I can't do that, ma'am, it's a custom order. And it's pre-paid."

Definitely bloody Winchester. Either him in the hallway, or him sending whatever it was to get her to open her door. "I don't care, you'll have to take it back."

"But I _can't_," said the delivery guy, with a rather convincing tone of a person experiencing the unsolvable conundrum of someone who makes half their living in tips.

"Oh bloody... Just leave it in the hall then. Because no power on earth will make me open-"

The deadbolt mechanism dropped off the door and rolled past Bela's feet. She had taken a step back and aimed her gun before the small man in a bright red windbreaker pushed the door open.

"Oh, shit, lady!" he said, holding a large covered tray and ducking. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Who are you and what do you want?" Bela demanded of the terrified courier who was neither Sam nor Dean Winchester.

"Nothing! I swear! I'm just making a delivery! I'm sorry! Here," he slid the tray he was carrying onto a side table, "I'm, I'm just gonna go, okay! I'm sorry!" he turned and fled out the door, white Loehmann's logo on the back of his red jacket bouncing as he ran.

She waited a second or while the door hung half-closed, not taking her eyes or gun off it. Out in the hallway, the door to the stairwell slammed. Silence descended. She glanced at the tray on the side table. There was a stack of napkins with the deli logo on top of the cover. Maybe it was a bomb. It was enormous and smelled of fish. Bela loathed fish.

First things first, lock the door. Somehow.

Keeping her gun out, she edged toward where the deadbolt mechanism had stopped rolling. It looked fine, not drilled or mangled in any way. She wondered if she had managed to accidentally touch that rabbit's foot and now this was the start of her luck going bad, because perfectly good deadbolts didn't just fall off doors.

Bending to pick up the lock parts while keeping her eyes and gun on the door, her shoulder caught the edge of the tray and sent it flying. It landed edge-on on her carpet and burst like an over-ripe melon. An over-ripe melon full of smoked salmon and caviar...

Her siamese cat sauntered out from his pigeon-viewing point under the settee and rubbed against her leg before commencing to stuff himself with the carpet-load of fishy delights.

Bela looked down at the cat, over at the counter, then back down.

"Oh Amenti..." she breathed. "You didn't?"

The cat purred and rubbed against her leg again, smearing caviar on Bela's shin.

-

After locking the door, which proved far easier than it should have, Bela scoured the apartment. After looking in all Amenti's little hideaway places, tongs at the ready, still no foot.

She kept watch on her cat. Not a particularly difficult endeavor as a sparkly ribbon from the wrapping paper box in the hall closet had somehow enmeshed itself in the straps of her shoes. Amenti chased after the ribbon through the apartment, following Bela everywhere but managing to avoid being stepped on. His luck was still good, so he still had 'possession' of the rabbit's foot.

_Possession is nine-tenths of the paw,_ Bela thought giddily.

Of course Bela knew how to destroy the foot. She'd be an idiot if she didn't know how to get out of the curse, just in case something went wrong and she touched the thing by accident. But this was her _cat_, not her. This was different...

She looked down at the floor, where Amenti had flopped over on his back and was attacking the still-trailing ribbons. He paused and blinked blue eyes at her slowly.

"Furry little bastard," she said sadly, stooping to scratch his head, "What am I going to do about you?" 

The siamese leaned into her hand and purred harder than he had since kittenhood.

Bela sighed. _He's just a cat. A million dollars can buy a lot of cats._ She grimaced. "Where is it? Where did you hide it, Mental 'Menti?" she cajoled. "Show mummy where you hid the nasty foot!"

Amenti blinked and scampered off under the sofa. _Who says cats don't do what you tell them?_

Bela turned to follow her cat and fell over, tongs flying, catching herself before she face-planted into the caviar on the carpet. While she was standing still the ribbon had somehow twined around her ankles.

Her landing shook the can of cat treats off the top of the refrigerator. It hit the edge of the kitchen counter, popping the lid off the canister, spinning it, and scattering treats across the kitchen floor. It was shortly followed by a box of 'Sleepy-Time' tea which burst on impact with the floor, adding teabags to the detritus on the tile.

Bela frowned over her shoulder and past her sparkly-ribbon-bound ankles at the mess in the kitchen. Why in the world spilled teabags would be good luck for a cat...?

She suddenly remembered a much younger Amenti with his head jammed into her tea cup. Right. One of the tea's ingredients was catnip.

Amenti peered out from under the sofa, rabbit's foot in his mouth.

"Here, 'Menti, 'Menti," Bela said, picking the partly fish-soaked wad of napkins off the floor beside her. "Good kitty. Give mummy the foot."

The cat retreated into the dim recesses under the sofa, taking the rabbit's foot with him.

"Oh, come _on_, Amenti!" As she reached under the sofa, the front legs gave way, pinning her arm underneath.

Amenti dropped the foot and head-butted Bela's conveniently trapped hand, pausing to lick caviar off the napkin wad. If the carpet hadn't been coated in fish eggs and salmon goo, Bela would have beat her head against the floor in frustration. Out on the fire escape, a hundred pigeons cooed lazily.

Of course that would be when the phone rang.

This was ludicrous. Bela, peering under the edge of the collapsed sofa grabbed the rabbit's foot with the napkins and unwedged her arm. As she kicked her way free of the sparkly ribbon, Amenti came out from the side of the sofa. The back legs on the heavy article of furniture gave way and pinched the tip of his tail. The cat yowled in indignation as Bela picked up the phone.

"Hello."

"Do you have it?"

The buyer. Perfect. Bela placed the rabbit's foot in its sticky napkin swaddling on the counter and looked over at Amenti, who was swishing his injured tail back and forth.

"Well?"

On the balcony, the pigeons scattered as the bloody pekingese from the apartment above scampered down the fire escape stairs trailing a broken leash. The hairy beast yapped and frothed at the window.

Amenti snarled and went to leap onto the windowsill but missed, hitting the wall below and landing in an undignified sprawl. He gave an affronted 'mrowr' before starting to wash himself, ignoring the frothing peke outside. Almost instantly the cat developed a hairball, gacking a fibrous lump onto the carpet next to the caviar.

Bela covered her eyes with the hand least tinged by fish slime. _Why Amenti, why?_

"I'm waiting..." said the buyer, annoyed.

Amenti mewled at Bela and looked forlorn. Bela sighed. There would be other mystical trinkets to sell. There always were.

"I'm sorry," Bela said curtly into the phone, "I was lied to. The thing doesn't work. It's just a bit of dead animal. It's worthless."

"I see," growled the buyer. "Maybe next time you'll be more careful about your information before seeking out my interest?" The receiver clicked.

_Damn._ Bela gathered up the bundle of napkins. "Come on, 'Menti. We've got a million dollar foot to set on fire."

- - -  
(that's all. Do I actually think Bela would make this decision this way? No. But I also don't think her cat would be this freaking stupid.)


End file.
